The start of 2022 has not been kind to investors. The US stock market has suffered its worst start to the year since the global financial crisis, as the threat of rising interest rates, slowing corporate earnings growth and geopolitical tensions have sent stocks tumbling across the board. While investors have been weighing rising rates and slowing growth for months, the past few weeks have also added an additional complication: the threat of war in Ukraine. Geopolitical risks are notoriously difficult to price into stock markets but rising tensions over a potential Russian invasion have helped to spread weakness from technology stocks to the broader market in the second half of January.